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You've probably seen pictures by now on the news of the monster tornado that hit Hattiesburg last night. Preliminary reports say it damaged 6 buildings on the USM campus, damaged or destroyed 200 homes, mobile homes, and businesses, and 100 apartments, and a lot of damage to and around a local high school. 50 roads are closed. 63 people were sent to the hospital with non-lifethreatening injuries. The news said that the path of this tornado was 75 miles long, across three counties, damaging buildings, tearing down even ancient trees and utility poles. There were two other counties that also had tornados. My granddaughter lives and attends college in Hattiesburg. She is fine and no house damage, but said the noise from the tornado was loud and scarey. Thank goodness things weren't worse. I hope that if anyone else on this forum lives in the affected area, they are O.K.

Posted by: Lola, Monday, February 11, 2013, 9:00pm; Reply: 1

may all be safe :)

Posted by: Chloe, Monday, February 11, 2013, 10:10pm; Reply: 2

D.L...glad to hear your granddaughter is safe and also hope anyone from the area on this forum issafe as well....What a frightening experience!

Posted by: gulfcoastguy, Monday, February 11, 2013, 10:37pm; Reply: 3

It missed my parents and sisters. My younger sister had her neighbors roofs in her backyard and may be missing some shingles. She lives in Lake Shore gated community. The roads inside it were clogged with debris. Oak Grove high school was heavily damaged. My parents own a rental house within a half mile of the high school, status unknown by me as yet. My older sister owns a store in the line of the storm specializing in sewing machines, fabrics, quilting including lessons and some other things. I'll find out it's status tonight. My parent's church was also in the path and I won't know about it till tonight.

Posted by: Possum, Monday, February 11, 2013, 10:43pm; Reply: 4

OhmyGosh?! 75 miles long? Poor guys in its path!!

Posted by: D.L., Tuesday, February 12, 2013, 12:18am; Reply: 5

Gulfcoast guy - I sure hope all turned out ok for your family that you haven't heard about yet. Thank goodness it missed your parents and sisters. I watched our governor's press conference this morning at USM. I took many, many classes at that university through the years, driving 60 miles each way from where I used to live. It is sad to see the destruction. Even the Red Cross building was destroyed, so they are sending Red Cross volunteers from around the state. From the stories survivors told, many had scary close calls.Preliminary reports say it was an EF3 with 145 wind speed.

Posted by: D.L., Tuesday, February 12, 2013, 12:27am; Reply: 6

I just saw that the National Weather Service upgraded the tornado to an EF-4 with wind speed of 170. A spin off tornado across a nearby county was rated EF-2.

Posted by: gulfcoastguy, Tuesday, February 12, 2013, 1:54am; Reply: 7

No damage to my relatives property. Some mighty nasty comments on the yahoo.com story though. Not going to repeat them here.

It has been updated to 570 homes destroyed or had major damage, with 80 people injured, 2 critically. gulfcoast guy - I haven't seen that story nor comments, but unfortunately whenever a story about Mississippi is in the national news, there are always some nasty comments by people who know nothing about the state. What a shame. I live here by choice, not by birth, and know a lot of wonderful, kind, and generous folks in MS. It is a beautiful state and more people are moving to our area from other states. I'm glad your relatives are ok.

It has been updated to 570 homes destroyed or had major damage, with 80 people injured, 2 critically. gulfcoast guy - I haven't seen that story nor comments, but unfortunately whenever a story about Mississippi is in the national news, there are always some nasty comments by people who know nothing about the state. What a shame. I live here by choice, not by birth, and know a lot of wonderful, kind, and generous folks in MS. It is a beautiful state and more people are moving to our area from other states. I'm glad your relatives are ok.

Most of those people commenting probably have never been out of their home state. I have a lot of friends in MS, too, and they are wonderful people. And, yes, it is a beautiful state!

Yep I was working on a construction project at the south east corner of my state in 1990. A rv from one of the rust belt states pulled over. Since they were in a closed construction zone I went over to talk to them. They had entered the North west corner of Mississippi and drove for a minimum of 8 hrs. They stopped once ..to let their poodle piddle on my project. It seems like no change in 23 years.

Posted by: ruthiegirl, Tuesday, February 12, 2013, 2:58pm; Reply: 13

Eeks! I'm glad that most of the injuries were minor and nobody was killed.

Posted by: Jane, Tuesday, February 12, 2013, 5:09pm; Reply: 14

Glad to hear that your family is OK GCG. I've never been to Mississippi but for several years I placed people in mill near Jackson. I got to know a lot of wonderful people there.

The extreme weather the past few years can be really frightening and it's predicted to continue that way. Hope they are wrong.

Eeks! I'm glad that most of the injuries were minor and nobody was killed.

Two serious and probably will be more injuries(chain saws, falls, and electric wires) and heart attacks, strokes ect in the clean up.

Posted by: Mrs T O+, Wednesday, February 13, 2013, 5:20am; Reply: 16

Wow! I'm also glad that folks are OK. I didn't realize the storm was so strong!

I bet Mississippi is a lovely state. I think Kentucky used to to joked about, too. They really should joke about Illinois. We really have a lot of bad things here!! I won't mind if you do. Just leave the Southern states alone, y'all!! They have had enough over the years.

Posted by: D.L., Thursday, February 14, 2013, 11:46pm; Reply: 17

Latest update is that 800 plus houses were destroyed or severely damaged, plus other buildings. The stories of close calls are miraculous. It will cost over 10 million dollars to repair the university. Especially hard hit were the music buildings and performance auditoriums and alumni house. Some entire subdivisions were destroyed. Twenty five of the twenty seven Hattiesburg school busses are inoperable. But no lives were lost, thank goodness.

Posted by: Spring, Friday, February 15, 2013, 12:46am; Reply: 18

It is astonishing that people were not killed. But I have seen many miraculous events in those kinds of storms. One instance that always comes to mind is a young mother sitting in a rocking chair in their home nursing their young baby. A 110 foot pine tree fell over the house and landed at her elbow. Neither of them were injured at all. The house was split down to the ground. Incredible. This was less than 2 miles from us.

Two blocks from here another storm lifted fourteen trees in one yard and piled them over the home on the property. The house survived and the people were safe. The trees were propping each other up. We were away at the time and when we drove into our neighborhood and saw this sight I just burst into tears. It was unbelievable.....

Posted by: gulfcoastguy, Friday, February 15, 2013, 3:21am; Reply: 19

I drove through Hattiesburg today on business. USM is more heavily damaged than has been reported, two buildings were completely demolished. Several roofs were partially uplifted and the brick fascia was stripped on many building also. Blown out windows were common which means water damage inside the buildings.

Posted by: gulfcoastguy, Friday, February 15, 2013, 3:24am; Reply: 20

My younger sister lives in the Lake Shore gated community. It was heavily damaged. Her house wasn't though her neighbors roofs were in her backyard. The next day a realtor forwarded an offer to her, She did lose the windshield on one of the family vehicles.

Posted by: D.L., Friday, February 15, 2013, 4:11pm; Reply: 21

The managing editor of WDAM said in his commentary yesterday that over 2,000 homes were severely damaged or destroyed, not counting all the other buildings. Students and community neighbors are working together to help with the clean up. That's teamwork. Classes started yesterday at USM and Oak Grove High School, despite everything. Other counties have loaned Hattiesburg school busses. Like I said before, there are many wonderful people in MS.

Posted by: D.L., Friday, February 15, 2013, 4:17pm; Reply: 22

Spring - Several years ago in KY, my daughter and her new husband were in the only room in their house that wasn't totally flattened when a tornado knocked down an ancient tree that fell on their house that night. Later she went into the bedroom to get some things, climbing over tree branches. The photo album on the dresser of her new wedding wasn't damaged. After she rescued a few things and got out, the entire roof fell in where she had been. Talk about miracles.

Posted by: Spring, Friday, February 15, 2013, 4:34pm; Reply: 23

D.L., your post gave me chill bumps. Incredible to the nth. And, yes, that teamwork is what has held the Gulf Coast region together for generations! And that is incredible too.